Page 97 of Vampire's Choice

Those watching were using tokens to move the “arm,” a control rod attached to the wrist cuffs. Ruth deduced it must have a dozen settings, because they could apparently rotate it against her sex, make it pump up and down, rub against her clit, or brush and tap it.

The woman had no control. They had it all. To keep going, the participants merely had to keep feeding the machine tokens. If they chose to have merely a “turn,” the length of that seemed designed to leave the sub panting and aching for what the next in line would do to tease her.

“There are different contests involved,” Merc said. He shifted their positions, so Ruth sat on his knee, his arm around her waist. He slid his fingertips along her breast, brushing her taut nipple. Ruth bit back that cry she’d known would come from his touch.

“Who keeps her on the edge the longest,” he continued, his eyes reflecting that intense, predator-in-the-dark gleam. “Or makes her climax the hardest. Or the most quickly.”

As she watched the girl writhe, scream and plead through the marathon of erratic stimulation, Ruth’s mind locked up. She couldn’t speak her needs, but her shaking body told him. He was watching her, but his stillness told her things would move at his pace. When he finally rose and turned her around, a crazy sob caught in her throat. His hand clamped over her ass, his fingertips probing the sensitive seam between her buttocks.

“Hold onto me.”

He exited through the open top of the tent. The smooth and sinuous way he angled through the metal frame pieces made her tighten her arms around him. Her smile over it landed on the sharp edge of other things she was feeling.

Vampires should have the ability to fly. Would a child born of an angel and vampire have that ability? Would it be the first of a new race, or had it happened before?

The thought was random insanity caused by an excess of arousal. Vampires were notoriously bad breeders, within their own race or with their human servants, let alone with other races. She didn’t know of any successful offspring, except for Dante, Alexis’s mate, Clara’s merangel friend. Dante was a half-breed vampire crossed with a terrible race from a different world, the Dark Spawn. Though she didn’t know all the details, she expected the pregnancy hadn’t been a natural thing. Dante, like Merc, had struggled with his volatile nature.

Merc wouldn’t have harmed Clara, but he wasn’t above using intimidation to take over the moment. She should talk to him about that. Even if she did feel a guilty surge of pleasure when he did it to assert a territorial claim over her.

They were coming in for a landing at that storage tent Ruth was starting to realize was the closest thing Merc claimed as his own quarters on Circus grounds.

“Where do you sleep?” she asked.

“Often the forest. I prefer the trees. Or I anchor myself to a cloud bank and drift with it.”

“You can sleep in the clouds?”

“It requires some energy manipulation, which has to be maintained while I sleep. Marcellus showed me how.”

A slight smile touched his lips as he read her expression. “Yes, you could sleep with me there. If you behave and I decide you’re worth the extra trouble.”

She made a face at him. “Me behaving—what you would call behaving—would bore you to death.”

Instead of answering that, he put her down, opened the tent flap and gestured her inside. The interior had changed, and the differences had her heart skipping a beat.

The crates were in a semi-circle around a wooden chair, similar to what Yvette had in her tent to “hold court,” as Gundar dryly put it. A side table was behind the chair. She could see its edge, but not what might be on it. A mat was on the floor in front of the chair, as were a scattering of white petals that emitted a haunting, hard-to-place fragrance, a wistful memory. Increasing the yearning.

“No one will disturb us here without my knowledge,” Merc said, “and I’ll be aware of it before they can see us.” He met her gaze. “You’re safe to be who you are, Ruth.”

She reached for flippancy, her true reaction too strong. It would spill over and embarrass her. “So whatever female you planned all this for wasn’t available tonight?”

“Stop.” His gaze seared her, a stripe of fire across her heart, painful enough to have her stepping back. She wondered if it was made worse by the clash between her ragged emotions and his implacable ones. He wouldn’t release her hand, so she had to halt when she reached the end of that tether.

“You don’t get to hide. You won’t protect yourself here. I won’t put up with it. Say the truth.”

“You prepared this for me tonight.” A million reactions spiked as she forced out the words. They terrified her. “Why?”

“Because I wanted you here, to myself. To have you as I desire. The longer you were in the Big Top, the more painful your yearning for what you want to do, to be, became. I won’t put up with that, either. So we explore it here.”

She moistened her lips. “What did you have in mind?”

“First we deal with your punishment.”

“Punishment for what?”

When his gaze moved over the dress, she made a guess. “Wearing this outfit?”

“No. You wore that for me. There is no punishment for trying to please me and drive me insane at the same time.” His attention lifted from it. “You’ll earn a worse punishment if you pretend not to know.”